Man who claimed to be AAP MLA’s personal assistant convicted

A Delhi court convicted on May 29 a person who claimed to be the personal assistant to an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA in an extortion case after a fair price shop’s salesman filed a complaint against him.

The case dates back to August 2015 when Sandeep Kumar, a salesman at an FPS shop in east Delhi’s Kalyan Puri informed the police that Dinesh Kumar, who claimed to be a personal assistant of Kondli MLA, Manoj Kumar, threatened to seal the shop if he did not pay ₹2,000 per month.

The salesman informed police that he paid the money from April till August 2015 and remained silent “because of the fear of losing his employment”. The police chargesheeted both Dinesh Kumar and MLA Manoj Kumar but the MLA was discharged during the framing of charges as police did not collect find “admissible evidence against him”.

MLA Manoj Kumar clarified that the accused, Dinesh Kumar, was never his PA .“He was not my PA. He must have been one of the volunteers. Once we got to know that he was involved in extortion, he was immediately removed,” said the AAP MLA. He further added that he has not been in touch with the accused since the incident was reported.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate Samar Vishal pronounced Dinesh Kumar guilty and observed that he has not denied that he was the PA of MLA Manoj Kumar. The court said “the position of the complainant vis-à-vis the accused was such that the commission of the offence as alleged was not improbable.”

The complainant salesman told the court that “accused (Dinesh Kumar) used to come with MLA to inspect the shop and, therefore he was frightened and paid the money”.

During the trial, Dinesh Kumar informed the court that he has been falsely implicated “because he belonged to AAP and he used to be part of the vigilance committee for FPS which was headed by Manoj Kumar.”

He further said the “allegations against him are blatantly false and has been levelled against him with malafide intention and ulterior motives so that the vigilance committee becomes ineffective and the fair price shop owners get a free run to cheat the public”, the court order noted.

The court however, found the case and evidence “beyond reasonable doubts” and has listed the matter for arguments on sentencing for June 3.

AAP spokesperson, Saurabh Bharadwaj said Delhi Police, on directions of the central government, has filed 100-plus fabricated cases against AAP MLAs and over 80-plus cases have seen discharge and acquittal of MLAs.

“Even here, 16 motivated cases were registered by the police, however, the charge sheet could be filed in just one. The court did not accept the motivated charges filed against the MLA and discharged him at that stage,” said Bharadwaj.

Bharadwaj further added, “role of MLA was investigated and nothing could be found linking him to this case. It is incomprehensible that the MLA will ask for ₹2,000 bribe. Delhi Police should borrow some good scripts from story writers.”

The accused and his conduct had nothing to do with MLA Manoj Kumar, the spokesperson said.